The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Does Binding Arbitration Remove the Rights of Workers?

Episode Date: December 3, 2024

Binding arbitration imposed by the federal government has been used with increasing frequency to resolve labour disputes in Canada, including most recently with railway and port workers. But does forcing an agreement on employers and workers lead to the best outcomes? A look at how labour and companies fare when the government steps into contract disputes, and why binding arbitration is probably not in store for Canada Post. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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in Alberta. In all of these recent labour disputes, the federal government sent workers and employers to binding arbitration. Does the use of this section of the Canada Labour Code remove the rights of workers? And if it does, what does that mean for labour peace across the country? For more, we're joined by Ian Lee, Associate Professor at the Sprott School of Business at Carleton University. He joins us from the nation's capital. And here in studio, Rafael Gomez, Professor and Director of the Centre for Industrial

Relations and Human Resources at the University of Toronto. Stephen Barrett, partner specializing in labour law at Goldblatt Partners LLP. And Laura Walton, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour. Thank you everyone for joining us in studio. Really appreciate it. Ian, for joining us virtually as well. Stephen, let me start with you.

What is binding arbitration? And when is it typically introduced in the labour dispute? So when you're in collective bargaining, there's generally two ways to resolve the dispute. One is through strikes or lockouts and the other is through binding arbitration. In Ontario, binding arbitration applies automatically in certain sectors where the workers are deemed essential, so hospital, firefighting and police. Unions and employers can voluntarily agree to binding arbitration, that happens infrequently, or where there's a strike that from the government's perspective has gone on or a lockout too long and is causing serious damage, governments will sometimes impose back-to-work legislation,

and that is almost invariably accompanied by binding arbitration. And what that means is that instead of the parties having to negotiate their collective agreement, it gets imposed by a third-party arbitrator. Alright, Rafael, how long does an agreement determined by binding arbitration actually last? Well, that can depend, but can I correct something that Stephen just said? Go for it, already. How long does an agreement determined by a binding arbitration actually last? Well, that can depend, but can I correct something that Steve just said? Oh, already. He said there's only two ways that you can find an agreement through a strike or through

binding arbitration. There's a third way at the table. 98.6% of collective agreements. Remember that. 98. It differs by province, but you're looking in the upper 90s. So most of the time, the deals are struck at the bargaining table close to the line but before a strike or a lockout happens. Just to put that out there.

Can I just say in response to that though, you're absolutely right, but the parties usually know the rules under which they're bargaining. So if you know that strike-lockout is the outcome, then you bargain knowing that that's the leverage you have. If you know that binding arbitration is going to be imposed, you bargain that way. What's going on here that I'm sure we'll talk about is something quite different with Section 107. It's the messiness of the federal jurisdiction in intervening sometimes and not intervening other times creates chaos.

And this average, you think, okay, 98, 99 percent, but in the federal jurisdiction there's only so many employers and yet half, all of them have seemed to have gone on some form of... Well, we will talk about that. But your question. Yes. So how long does an agreement determined by binding arbitration actually last? Well, the average length of any collective agreement in Canada varies. But two, three, four, five years is not uncommon.

Binding arbitration can do the same. Like, you have an agreement that has a certain life. You kind of get a good arbitrator reads the room, understands what both parties need. But to your question, it was nicely phrased at the end, is this leading to more disruption down the road? It can. If you put a bottleneck on what parties could have achieved through bargaining, you're just setting yourself up for a worse outcome later.

However, having said that, an arbitrator has to impose a deal and put themselves in the frame of mind of what would have been negotiated. So a good arbitrator plays out a scenario. What would happen if this had been a lockout or a strike? What would have been the terms and conditions that could have been negotiated? So good arbitrators do try to follow through

in this what if scenario, this sort of future world that would have happened but didn't. OK. Ian, I'm going to bring through in this what-if scenario, this sort of future world that would have happened, but didn't. Okay, Ian, I'm gonna bring you in here. Help explain sort of the process of binding arbitration sort of in practice for both workers and employers. I'm gonna defer to the labor scholars around the table, but while I've got my opportunity to speak, I just wanna put on the table some empirical data.

I published an article called striking out in two thousand twelve and i'd went to to because there was a discussion at the time harper was legislating the post were expected work and more some pundits saying this is on precedent never have before and it was old enough to remember the postal strikes of the sixty seventies nineties and nineties knew that that's simply not correct so i'm it was a lot of work. So I went to the Library of Parliament Research Branch. They were very, very helpful. I said, look,

can you give me the list of every bill tabled in Parliament, Parliament of Canada, 1950 to 2012, that legislated workers back to work? And they were phenomenal. They were very helpful. And they gave me that list, first reading, second reading, third reading, House and Senate and Royal Assent. It was remarkable. 34 times Parliament, success of Parliament's liberal governments and Conservative governments, legislated striking workers back to work. 32 of the 34 were in the transportation and communications sector. Not one bill was ever defeated in parliament. I updated that this year to 2024 and the current stats right up to the present

37 times from 1950 to 2024 have been legislated back to work and seven, in addition to the 37, seven ministerial orders imposing binding arbitration under section 107. So that's a total of 44 times. Shall we say there's a precedent there, there's a practice there, you could even say. 44 times is a lot, but it's always been transportation. Yes, the post office, if you remove the post office, it's been exclusively in the transportation sector. And so I argued that even though they have the right to strike, successive parliaments have said you may have the de jure right to strike, but de facto, we're not going to allow

you to strike. Before we get into the politics and the industry themselves, Laura, I want to ask what issues are usually settled through binding arbitration? Is this monetary? Is this non-monetary? Monetary. I think that's the important piece that we need to remember is, you know, typically in binding arbitration, you're able to settle the wages issue, maybe some sick leave if you're lucky, doubtful, you know, but it's typically compensation matters.

The real problem is, is that that's not just what you go to the table to do. When you are going to the table to negotiate with the employer, you're looking at working conditions, you're looking at health and safety, you're looking at those pieces as well and those are the things that typically do not get addressed in binding arbitration. To your point, you know, the ability of the arbitrator to project what may have possibly happened had we had the opportunity to properly negotiate gets very muddied when you start talking about the health and safetyied when you start talking about the health

and safety, when you get talking about the number the ratio of a worker to a client or a student or a resident. Those things don't tend to be dealt with in binding arbitration. So what in fact happens is that real big pressing issues, right, because those are pressing issues. That's why folks have brought them to the table. They just get pushed off down the road to the next time that you get to bargaining. And the next time, the next time. And so what you're doing is you're actually

creating a pressure cooker where workers' demands need to be met. And if not met through the legal avenues that they have, then when do they get met? And I think that that's why I think, yeah, you are setting yourself up for more disruption by not allowing the process to actually play out in the way that it has been intended. Very good. All right. We are going to show a clip here.

This is a clip of Liberal Labour Minister Stephen McKinnon speaking in Ottawa on November 12th. This was at a press conference he held after invoking binding arbitration on port workers in British Columbia and Quebec, including removing their right to strike. There are a lot of working Canadians whose jobs depend on our supply chains functioning. I mentioned some of them in my statement. Auto workers, potash workers, farmers, small business people who need merchandise for their shelves to sell at Christmas. So I view actions to restore order, reasonable actions to restore order in our supply chains as being pro-worker. Ian I'm coming to you that last word there pro-worker. Do you agree that this call for binding arbitration

is as McKinnon says, pro-worker? Well, first I will disclose, I just finished publishing a paper on this. And I certainly don't deny, and there are some very distinguished people around the table who know far more deeply the Supreme Court decision of 2015 that said workers have the right to strike. But that decision, and I have read it, never said that every last living breathing Canadian has the right to strike. Of course RCMP doesn't have the right to strike. Of course the Armed Forces don't have. Of course ambulance workers and OPP and it goes on and on.

Treasury Board of Canada, the employer of the Federal Public Service has designated 46,000 people out of 120,000 in PSAC as essential services. So my point is, it's not that abnormal when there is a provision for essential services But to your point and I will put on the table and acknowledge The ports and the railroads are not in the federal public service. They're not employees of the government They are the private sector But what the minister is arguing and I have to agree with him Is that I I don't think that the Constitution is an

economic suicide pact, whereby we're going to bring down the economy. And let me just unpack that before I hand it back. The supply chain in Canada, the railroads and the ports in the trucking industry are not a tiny little bit or piece of the supply chain. They are the totality of the supply chain. They are the backbone of the economy of Canada, 40 million people, $2.5 trillion. And so people across the country are completely dependent on those supply chains from operating, whether it's retail, Canadian tire, home depot, whether it's restaurants, it's automobiles whether it's restaurants it's automobiles as we the totality of the country is dependent

and so i'm not arguing that they should have the right strike removed in my paper i use the american model which was uh... introduced able to nineteen twenty six passed a law in twenty six and and and augmented by president rosevelt uh... to uh... restrict the right to strike by putting roadblocks lots of roadblocks so that you had all these cooling off here at the moment great uh... negotiations broke

out you know wait for ninety days media reports got away for ninety days so they put lots and lots of these roadblocks they never remove the right to strike but what they did was they introduce these cooling off periods throughout the process, and the end result was that they have far, far fewer strikes in this critical sector called transportation, because their economy is dependent on transportation infrastructure

and the supply chain, as is Canada. So I'm probably going to be the skunk of the garden party, but I do agree that we cannot have serial strikes, as we've seen in the last two, three years that are going to literally shut down the economy of Canada. All right. Let's get this table's reaction on there. Stephen, I'll start with you. Pick up on that, but does binding arbitration undermine workers' rights?

Of course it does. What the Supreme Court of Canada actually said in the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour cases that workers do have the right to strike, that it can be restricted but only in limited circumstances not preemptively as is going on here. The Supreme Court of Canada also said of course there's going to be an economic impact of a strike. That's what strikes are about. And as to Ian's comparison with the United States, cooling off, which is actually built into our labour relations system, is very different than completely eviscerating the

right to strike, which is what the Minister of Labour has been doing with the Section 107 orders. And just on that front, back to work legislation, I agree with Ian, has a long history in Canada, rightly or wrongly. It's been struck down, including in the post office context, as violating constitutional rights and not being justified. What's unprecedented here is the minister using this power in the Canada Labour Code as if he can completely undermine all the rights in not only the Canada Labour Code as if he can completely undermine all the rights in

that not only in the Canada Labour Code but also in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That is what's unprecedented and doing it preemptively and all you have to do if you're an employer in the sectors that Ian's concerned about is walk your employees out and the minister is going to end the ability of workers to strike in response and impose binding arbitration. And as Laura pointed out, although arbitrators can deal with some of those issues, health and safety, technological change, hours at work, the very issues in the Port Authority case, in the Canada Post

case, in the case of the railway workers, those are all important issues workers have raised. Arbitrators are inherently conservative. They are afraid to intervene in the workplace because they don't understand how it works, quite rightly. And you know who knows how the workplace works? The parties, the employer and the union, and they should be permitted to try to work those things out, as Professor Gomes said. We've got to come with them right there. I think Lauret wanted to pipe in.

Yeah, go. I heard you over my shoulder. I'll let you off for a point. The sky is falling idea of all times that everybody goes to negotiations, ends up in a strike, is just completely false. And it's this urban legend that needs to stop. So there isn't serial striking.

And I respect what you're saying, but there is not serial striking. And I respect what you're saying, but there is not serial striking. There are far more collective agreements that are reached through the natural progression of negotiations. But when we see somebody step in and interfere before we even get there, that's where we've got a problem. So I am very hesitant whenever I hear somebody say, well, we've got to put these things in place because there's this serial striking.

No, there is not serial striking. And I think that, you know, using that and trying to use that to whip up this, like, oh sure, let's do that is very problematic because you're stripping away the very right that workers have enshrined in the charter to be able to do this. And on both sides, employers also have the right, and it's not very often that I speak on behalf of the employer. I think everyone knows, but they also have the right to negotiate at that.

And I think the point of locking out your workers so that you can get this order is very problematic and it will be used. It will be used in that matter. Before I come to Rafael, I know Ian, I can see you want to jump in, so I'll get you in there. I do. Two points. I'm not advocating, and I don't think the minister

is, that this is something that should be applied across the entire framework of collective bargaining. He or if he isn't, I am referring only to the transportation sector because it is so crucial. We're talking the Port of Vancouver, the largest port in Canada, the Port of Montreal. We're talking the railroads,, the largest port in Canada, the Port of Montreal. We're talking the railroads, which ship over $400 billion of stuff to all the stores and all the businesses and all the villages across Canada. And secondly, not talking about removing the right to strike. In the American model, that model only applies to railroads and airlines. It did not, the Wagner Act replies to all the rest of collective bargaining. So this was a special car vote. They did only for transportation because it's so essential.

That's what I'm arguing. And secondly, it's not the abolition of the right to strike. It's just saying at every step of the way, when something happens in the collective bargaining, there's an automatic legislated 90 day cooling off period. Now, whether we go 90 days, 60 days, whatever, there are deliberate barriers put up so that there isn't a rush to strike or a rush to lockout that causes people to cool their jets.

And this is only in transportation. So maybe I can offer a little perspective. So when I said earlier, most agreements are settled, just to qualify with Steve's. What it's true is that since 2022, we've had a real uptick in strike activity, partly because of things that were measures that were taken during the pandemic.

We rolled over collective agreements that would have otherwise expired. Because these industries were deemed as essential, things weren't dealt with. So collective agreements weren't reopened when they should have. And also, things weren't dealt with. So collective agreements weren't reopened when they should have. And also, striking didn't happen across the board in provinces enacted emergencies law.

So there was all this pent up negotiating that didn't happen, inflation that spiked. So collective agreements have emerged from that period as sort of bellwethers of, I think, a lot of the problematic steps that we're taking during the pandemic. But that's an issue. The second thing is there is a public interest, I think, in the federal jurisdiction. It's why we have 10% of our economy that's regulated at the labor side from the

federal jurisdiction, banks and so on, of regulated transportation. And there is a public interest argument. That is that strikes take on maybe not the level of an essential service, in which life or death is at stake, but a public interest is. And that's why back to work legislation has historically been tabled. But now to square the circle, Stephen is correct.

This government has weaseled out. It's used this Section 107 to confuse the parties in. No one knows what the government's going to do. Are they going to intervene or not? That produces chaos, uncertainty. Parties don't like that. To your point, employers and unions suffer in this chaotic environment,

all at the hands of our federal labor minister. All right. All right, I want to make sure we've got a lot of stuff I want to cover, so I want to make sure we get in there. But Rafael, I want to come back to you. Ian had made a point there. Employees in the private sector, should they be considered essential?

Some, potentially. The point is, even when you blank, the problem was that in my, I defer to my legal friends, Stephen here, but the broad brush, that's Saskatchewan case, was actually really good. What the government tried to do there was bully tactic. The entire public service was deemed as, you know, and that creates a counter reaction.

So is there a case for a public, a private sector employer that would be deemed essential? Possibly. We'd have to find out what those would be. But even in those cases, you do want to encourage parties to negotiate as far as they can with as much leeway as possible at the table. It's complicated.

There's so many issues that have to get worked out. Allowing parties to do it is usually the best way, and most of them do do it. When there's certainty, here's the issue. The worst case scenario was the ports, because in the ports, they allowed a strike to happen and then invoked 107 anyway. So you have the costs of a strike with no benefits. Strikes that actually occur, yes, they have costs.

But they have greater benefits if they're short, because the parties realize what was at stake. What information were they withholding that they now have to reveal because of the cost of the strike? You basically had a costly strike with absolutely no benefit because you invoked 107. As bad as it is, if you're going to use 107, do it before the strike because the strike is pointless. It's actually worse.

So we don't have either system right now. If they wanted to really be clear, they said, we deem these sectors so important, we're willing to fight another legal battle over this. They are not going to go on strike under our watch. We will impose back to work legislation and they'll have an arbitrator figure out the rules. This in between is bad for everyone. Okay, we'll pick up on that. You mentioned section 107 a number of times and I want to make sure let's take a closer look at section 107 of the Canada Labour Code. It reads,

the minister, where the minister deems it expedient may do such things as to the minister seem likely to maintain or secure industrial peace and to promote conditions favorable to the settlement of industrial disputes or differences and to those ends the minister may refer any question to the board or direct the board to do such things as the minister deems necessary. All right when we mentioned board of course we're talking about the Canadian Industrial Relations Board.

I am curious, I actually want to talk about Canada Post. That's in the headlines right now. That is what a lot of people are looking at. But I'm curious about binding arbitration. Maybe something that would have happened in the past, but not in the case right now. We are kind of standing there. Should these workers be deemed essential essential why or why not? I don't I mean whether they're it depends what you mean by deemed essential but should these workers the real question is should

these workers have the right to strike? Of course they should have the right to strike and you know there are it may well be that if a strike goes on for an incredibly long period of time and the government believes that there's serious damage being caused as a result of the government might legislate them back to work. And the workers could challenge that, as has happened. But to preempt effectively this use of 107 is to preemptively completely override

the constitutional right to strike. And of course, that shouldn't be permitted. In fact, as Laura pointed out, we know that when that happens, the next round of bargaining is even more contentious and you don't get at the real issues. So arbitration where workers are truly essential, public policy in Ontario, firefighters, hospital workers, police, but to resort to imposing arbitration outside of those circumstances automatically undermines collective bargaining, which is constitutionally protected,

and there's really no justification for it. Alright, I'll bring you in there. Why does the government not implement back-to-work legislation for Canada post-workers? Well, I think I'm not them, so I'm going to say that right now. I don't profess to be them, but I think the one thing I just kind of want to loop back to is We have to remember and center the workers in this entire thing So to just deem somebody essential means that you do actually understand that the labor being provided by the workers is

What's making the economy go round without workers? The economy doesn't exist and I think that's the thing that I want folks to kind of put centered in here. We don't get further as an economy by racing to the bottom. And that's what you find typically will happen is, you know, let's put more pressure onto the workers. You know, the one question that I would be asking right now from the Canada Post perspective is, my understanding is that the employer is seeking concessions.

You know, if the work is so important, we all know that the labour being provided by these workers is fundamental to what makes us Canadian, right? They are tasked with delivering mail to the most remote parts of our country. That's pretty important. I think we all can agree there. Then why is the employer seeking concessions

for the very workers that make that happen. And that's where I think we need to really start, like let's centre the workers. Without workers you don't have an economy. That's what we need to remember. And when we start messing with that you start actually just deflating that and it actually deflates our economy. You actually end up with people in cost of living crisis. Why? Because they have not been able to negotiate what they need to in order to continue. That is super important. So I think from this perspective, I am not the government, nor do I ever really want to be said government.

But I think, you know, before we start looking at just what the workers' demands are, let's have a little bit of a gander at what the employer is asking for. And, you know, this isn't just about a group of people standing on the street in the cold. I've been on strike. Nobody takes that decision lightly. That's a very difficult decision to go out on strike, to put away any sort of wages that you're receiving, benefits, et cetera. But I also want to remind folks,

if it were not for the CUUPW workers that took a strike, we wouldn't have maternity leave the way that we have it now. And so there is huge benefit to our society by brave and bold workers making that very difficult decision and forcing the hand of the employer to do the right thing. All right. I want to come back to the board and get a better understanding of what the actual role of the board is. Rafael, can you help us understand how much power do they have?

Or maybe a little bit sooner. We were having a conversation about this before we knew about this ever happening. Why is the board being sidelined? The Canadian Industrial Relations Board works, I think, both on its de jure power, what it says in statute, but also its normative trust with the parties.

It's really being sidelined here. My understanding of Section 17, we can get into a debate, is that it should have been up to the board to push this back. The minister can refer it to the board. The board could really look at case by case basis and to maintain its independence, say, no, I'm sorry. This does not qualify. There wasn't even a strike yet. There was a one day lockout.

They could say, no, let the parties take some time, and then we could use it. The fact that now the board is very scared to oppose the government's sort of message, it undermines the board's authority. So now we're getting into this bad backsliding of institutions that have taken generations to build up, that are there to serve as neutral third parties

between employers and the unions. And that is being chipped away and eroded. My reading initially, I thought, and I remember doing an interview, I thought, well, it's still with the board. They could send this back. And they were just very much, no, the minister has said it. We have no way of opposing this.

And we're in this weird period, right? As Professor Lee was mentioning, most of the time, this has been brought forward to Parliament. Good or bad, at least it's aired there. And there's a government that's putting their legislative track record on the line during the next election. Again, this is a circumventing that.

And I think that's what's I think chipped away at the neutrality of the board and its respect amongst the parties. And that's not a good thing. All right, Ian, I'll get you in on that. I'll follow up on that because this is a very important point. Forgive me for using the language of economics, but in my view, Section 107 is becoming a substitute for back-to-work legislation because this government and other governments know that it's very contentious. The NDP has, from its very foundational origins,

has always opposed every back-to-work bill in parliament because they're philosophically opposed. And of course, it gets a lot of debate and a lot of it's very contentious. And so some in the last few years, some politicians, some ministers of labor found out there was this backdoor method for 107 and it's a substitute for going to parliament, which is messy. You got to have them all there. You got to introduce bill, first reading, second reading, third reading, then it's got to go over the Senate, Senate can kick it back. It's messy, it's inefficient. And I'm being a little bit facetious when I say that. And so what this suggests to me is that after the next election, because it's not going to happen in this lame duck parliament, there should be revisions, major

revisions to the labor code, including possibly removing transportation out of that and under its own regime of collective bargaining and addressing the flaws in 107. But there's clearly flaws in the current model in Canada or we wouldn't be having this conversation right now. Stephen, I'll get your take on some of what's been saying. Well, I mean, democracy is messy for sure. But what's the alternative? The alternative shouldn't be government edict to end workers' fundamental rights.

So whether back-to-work legislation is or isn't appropriate, the courts have ruled that workers are entitled to strike for a period of time. It may be that the strike goes on for such a long period of time that there's serious damage to the economy, but not preemptively at the beginning. And you know the example in the that Ian speaks about in the United States of these

cooling off periods well that's been part of the Canadian tradition forever. What has not been part of the Canadian tradition is simply imposing an end to the strike either before it begins or after it's been going on for a day or two that actually is foreign not to not just to the Charter of Rights but to the strike either before it begins or after it's been going on for a day or two, that actually is foreign, not just to the Charter of Rights, but to the Canadian tradition. So, you know, and the cooling off the United States still ultimately respects the right to strike. It may be that it delays it. So to that extent, I think probably Ian and I agree. And you know, Section 107, I think it's a unique provision in the federal jurisdiction,

no other province has it. If you're going to take away workers' fundamental constitutional rights, you should at least have to legislate. And it might be messy, and it might be a minority government, it's challenging. But you know, and I see Ian nodding. I think we agree on that. 107 is not the sort of device that should be used to undermine what the Supreme Court of Canada, and I think all four of us agree, is a fundamental right, which is the right

to strike. All right, Stephen, I actually want to stay with you. The unions representing railway and port workers say they will appeal binding arbitration, the orders that came. What will the union's arguments be in court? Well, in court, there's actually many different proceedings that are going on now. But fundamentally, they'll be relying

on the constitutional right to strike, and the fact that in order to override that strike you have to have very powerful reasons and evidence that the strike is causing harm, serious public harm. But it's not just the actually the this issue is now also before the Canada Board because in British Columbia the board is now going to have to decide the issue that it's sort of avoided up to now, which is whether invoking Section 107 undermines the constitutional protection for the right to strike, the right to collectively bargain, and that's actually, I think, being heard December 9th and 10th, initially, by the Canada board in BC.

What I hear is this sounds costly and takes quite a while. Well, they were pretty quick to invoke 107 and get quick orders from the board, but for sure it's costly for unions to have to challenge and vindicate workers' constitutional rights. It takes time, but what alternative does one have in the face of a government resorting to a provision that I'm not sure was intended to be used in this way, and until now really hasn't been used in this way? All right, Laura, I'm going to come to you.

You mentioned a little bit about this, but in the last few minutes that we have, collective bargaining. Why is it the preferred or negotiating preferable to binding arbitration order? Well I think when you think about it it's when you're doing collective bargaining your collective bargaining process is the workers voice at the same level as the employers voice. When you go in there you're equals and you're presenting your proposals, you're trying to find where there is a happy medium and because we know so many actually are solved

before we ever have any sort of labor disruption, we know that it happens. We know that when the work is done that it is happening. And so that allows for that to happen. When you head into binding arbitration, I also wanted to say that it often, binding arbitration can take a long time. It isn't always as quick as one would like. You know, it's

not unusual for there to be months of waiting before these things are solved, which also just adds that little bit of pressure onto that pressure cooker as well, right? We're putting it off, putting it out, putting it off. So, you know, wherever we possibly can, you know, free negotiated collective agreements with the parties there, they may need a mediator. they may need to, you know, bring in somebody, that's fine. But removing that completely away and just relying on some arguments being heard and hopefully the arbitrator being able to insert themselves into what they believe the workplace needs is never going to come out with the same sort of thing that

would happen when you have a group of people who is performing the work, a group of people who is overseeing the work, and they're, you know, putting together what that collective agreement should look like. All right, Rafael, you get the last word here. Oh, wow. Lesson learned here. Well, I can do two things.

One, the economic analogy. When we have interventions that are a bit sporadic and not consistent, it creates uncertainty in the parties and leads to disputes that would otherwise have been negotiated actually spilling over into a strike. That's the irony. Of not having clarity, we now have a two week pulse strike that might not have lasted as long.

Secondly, the other flip side of it is that arbitration is a very well developed and deeply ingrained institution in Canada. We have some of the best arbitrators in the world. So we're not denigrating arbitrators when we say we don't think finding arbitration necessarily is the go-to option always, negotiated settlements are. Having said that, conditional on that, our arbitration system is probably one of the most valued and respected in the world.

We train arbitrators around the world. So we're not going to get the best proper resolution from this, but we will have arbitration that is at least procedurally just and as fair as it can be. All right, we are gonna have to leave it there. Ian, Laura, Rafael, Steven, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you.